1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a continuously and combiningly operable breadth expansion and vibration enhanced spray dyeing machine (hereinafter as xe2x80x9ccontinuous spray dyeing machinexe2x80x9d) which is an highly efficient environment-preserving continuous spray dyeing and processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The term continuous spray dyeing machine used herein is intended to indicate a dyeing and processing apparatus which provides the fabric continuous dyeing and other processing. The fabric is continuously proceeded and substantially fully expanded in the breadthwise direction. The liquid dye and other fabric treating agents are brought into contact with the fabric in an atomized form by means of spray nozzles arranged above the fabric. A high speed air stream is formed under the fabric to create a low pressure zone which causes a pressure difference between the upper and lower sides of the expanded fabric. The static pressure above the fabric is greater than the pressure below so that the fabric can not only levitated and freely expanded in breadth direction via the high speed stream of air flow, but the fabric in motion can also periodically vibrate violently via the unbalanced pressure.
This vibration provides the energy for the dye, treating agents, or oxidation gases to penetrate into the fabric texture so as to enhance the absorption rate and diffusion speed of the dye into the fabric. Thus a continuous dyeing and processing operation with high efficiency, low energy consumption, low bath ratio and low pollution may be achieved.
The present invention is particularly related to an effect that is caused by the high speed air streams formed by a cloth guide tube. This does not only enhance the penetration and diffusion of the dye, but also speeds up the penetration of the oxidation gases to have a quick dye development when performing low temperature oxidation reduction dyeing. When performing other processing, It also provides a very efficient way to remove unwanted particles or impurities from the fabric so as to efficiently finish the operations of desizing, scouring, bleaching, soaping, reduction, enzyme treating, rinsing, relaxation, and drying. Therefore, the present invention can complete the overall dyeing and processing operations in a very short time as compared with the conventional dyeing apparatuses.
A conventional continuous dyeing machine is defined to be one that combines more than two machines with different functions to perform the dyeing process in a continuous way. When dyeing, there are three steps: dye padding, dye development and fixation, and washing and drying operations. The popular conventional continuous dyeing machines are developed by improving the design of the dye padding operation. To accomplish some operation, some designs follow a particular dyeing method; others choose a specific combination of individual machines. Therefore, to obtain a most reasonable manufacturing procedure or due to the limitation of the factory environment, the preprocessing operations are usually separated from the dyeing operation. Please refer to FIGS. 1 and 2. FIG. 1 is a side view of the combined structure of a conventional dye padding continuous dyeing machine. FIG. 2 shows a side view of a conventional continuous breadth expansion washing machine. Referring to FIG. 1, the combined structure comprises (listed according to the manufacturing order): a dye padding machine A, a steamer or a dryer B, an air oxidation machine C, a treating agent padding machine D, a steamer E, a washer F, a water remover G, and a dryer H. All the machines are connected in series and the fabric is drawn by the driving roller and cloth guide axis on each machine to continuously pass through each machine. To keep the fabric proceeding in a continuous way and fully expanded in width, the longitudinal and transverse directions of the fabric have to be stretched with a big tension.
Therefore, referring to FIG. 3A, the conventional continuous dyeing machine drags the fabric to pass the dye padding machine A and absorb the dye by a driving roller A1 and a pressure roller A2 on the dye padding machine. Thus, the size of the contact surface between the two rollers directly affects the dye padding rate, which in turn affects the depth of dyeing. To prevent the occurrence of color difference on both sides of the fabric, in addition to apply even pressures on both sides of the dye padding roller, the middle of the pressure roller must meet a crown standard so that the dye and treating agents can be evenly distributed. FIGS. 3B and 3C are the side views of the other commonly seen dye padding machines. The fabric past the dye padding machine A is immediately sent into and passes through the steamer B. There are many different forms for the steamer B, but all perform a single operation. It is different from the usual discontinuous dyeing machine. For example, the air flow type or liquid flow type dyeing machine can simultaneously perform continuous dye cycling and support to perform dyeing at the same time. The fabric passes through the steamer B or the air oxidation machine C to have the dye developed and fixed. The proceeding of the fabric is supported by a cloth guide axis set B1. When the dye gets fixed, the fabric is then guided into the washer F to remove the unfixed dye, remaining chemicals, or other impurities. Usually, the washer F has each tub as a unit F1 and several units are connected into a group. In the tubs are stored with a larger amount of water. A water removing pressure roller F2 is provided at the upper outlet of each tub. For the usual washers, a group has at least three tubs and up to fifteen tubs. The number depends upon the processing after dyeing. In conventional dye padding machines and steamers, the processing after dyeing includes operations such as re-oxidation, acid washing, neutralizing, hot showering, soaping, hot showing, and cold washing. Therefore, the washer with a group of seven to nine tubs is the best choice. After water washing and water removing, the fabric is guided into the dryer H to get dried. Usually, the dryer is consisted of several drying tubs. After dye padding, the fabric needs to be processed by dye development and fixation immediately and thus the dye development and fixation processing machine should be attached immediately after the dye padding machine.
So the conventional continuous dyeing machine is formed by connecting several different machines together to achieve the goal of continuous dyeing and processing.In practice, using the dye padding machine A to dye and proceed the fabric often makes the fabric without soft touch or has the problem of linearly folded dyeing. To ensure that the fabric can be fully expanded in width for dyeing and proceeding, the longitudinal tension is often greater than 1.5 kgF (per centimeter in width) in addition to the stretching in the transverse direction by a fabric stretching machine. Therefore, conventional continuous dyeing machines can only perform dyeing and processing on a tatted fabric, but the problem existing in the knitted or elastic fabric could not be resolved to date. Furthermore, in the dyeing process by the dye padding machine, although a small liquid amount dyeing can be achieved, yet the dyeing process can only be performed once. When performing dye development and fixation in the steamer, it cannot continuously supply the dye at the same time, and therefore the fabric can not obtain a deep color. When washing the fabric, a large amount of water is needed for cleaning. For a new generation of environment-preserving dyeing machine, the above mentioned continuous dyeing machine obviously needs many improvements and modifications.
Please refer to FIG. 4, which shows another spray dyeing apparatus with breadth expansion and vibration-enhanced dyeing operation invented by the inventor of this current invention. It is disclosed in the R.O.C. Pat. No. 098,316, the U.S. Pat. No. 5,775,136, and the PCT Pat. No. WO98/49383. The present invention is an improved invention derived from the existing technology principles and characteristics.
Please refer to FIGS. 4 and 6. FIG. 4 is a side view of a spray dyeing apparatus with breadth expansion and vibration-enhanced dyeing operation. FIG. 6 is a side view of the structure of a continuous spray dyeing machine according to the instant invention. The part of air guiding nozzle design is almost the same in the principle and structure. However, the application of the air guiding nozzles in the current invention is different from the previous patent. For the convenience of the examination procedure, this point has to be explained. The biggest difference is that the previous case is a discontinuous dyeing apparatus which can only provide a small amount of dyeing and processing; yet the continuous spray dyeing machine in the present invention can not only continuously perform processing in a processing tub, but also, by connection with other machines, continuously complete the operations such as dyeing, treating agents absorption, steam dye development, air dye development, dye fixing, washing, and drying. In particular, to facilitate even absorption or to promote the production rate, the processing tubs can be arbitrarily added to obtain the necessary quality and production rate. Therefore, in observation of the defects in the discontinuous spray dyeing apparatus with breadth expansion and vibration-enhanced dyeing operation and the above mentioned conventional continuous dyeing machines, the application technology of the air guiding nozzles should be improved for a better environment-preserving dyeing method. Accordingly, the inventor hereby provides another mass production type continuous dyeing apparatus.
The present invention provides a continuous spray dyeing machine, which allows the fabric to be levitated, expanded, and violently vibrated by a high speed air flow in dyeing and other processing operation so as to complete the processing in a short period of time.
The invention also provides knitted fabrics or other elastic fabrics a breadth expansion continuous dyeing and processing. Furthermore, the present invention provides a continuous spray dyeing machine, which can achieve the goal of continuous processing by combining different machines. It can also be arbitrarily modified, adjusted, expanded or reduced according to the manufacturing procedure and, therefore, can obtain the most economical dyeing and processing operations.
Yet, the present invention provides a continuous spray dyeing machine, in which the fabric is proceeded simultaneously in each sector in a folding collective way. In each sector, the fabric is dragged by one cloth-dragging wheel. Thus the tension on the fabric can be minimized and the usual bad soft touch problem of the fabric processed by ordinary padding continuous dyeing machines can be improved.
Moreover, the present invention provides a continuous spray dyeing machine, which can not only provide usual dispersive and reactive dyes, but also perform the spray dyeing operation with low temperature reduction dye liquor under a nitrogen gas (inert gases) mediated environment in the upstream processing tubs. When the fabric passes through the next processing tub, the reduction dye liquor can be oxidized for dye development by the large amount of fresh air sprayed out of the air guiding nozzles.
Yet further, the present invention provides a continuous spray dyeing machine, in which the lower side of the fabric is provided with a high speed air flow for the fabric to periodically vibrate violently when the fabric pass through each processing tub. Therefore, dyeing, treating agents or re-oxidation air can quickly penetrate into the fabric texture with the help of this vibration so that a highly efficient small amount dyeing and processing operations can be achieved.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a continuous spray dyeing machine, in which the lower side of the fabric can be provided with a high speed air flow containing dyes or a large amount water ejected from the air guiding nozzles when washing or dyeing the fabric with a compact texture. The fabric thus processed can be dyed on both sides and the impurities remaining on the fabric can be quickly diffused into water.
So the present invention can achieve the goal of instant washing and enhanced dyeing.Yet, another object of the present invention is to provide a continuous spray dyeing machine, which can, in addition to providing a small amount, high concentration dyeing via a periodically violent vibration on the fabric, enhance the removing ability of the impurities existing in the texture so that operations such as desizing, scouring, bleaching, soaping, washing can be quickly finished.
So the invention provides a highly efficient cleaning effect for the dyed fabric. Moreover, the present invention provides a continuous spray dyeing machine, which can not only provide dyeing and other wet type processing operations, but also dries the fabric by the dry and hot air flow coming out of the air guiding nozzles.It can blow the outer cold air to lower the temperature.
To achieve the above objects, the continuous spray dyeing machine provided by the instant invention has processing tubs for connections to perform simultaneous dyeing, wherein each processing tub is designed with the same principle and structure. The processing tub comprises a cloth collecting tub, a cloth guide tube, an air guide nozzle, cloth dragging wheel, a blast machine, a dye pump, a cloth wiggling machine, an air heater, a dye heater, an air cooling inlet, an exhaust outlet, a nitrogen inlet, a steam inlet, an air filter, a dye filter, pipes connecting each parts and controlling elements for each part.
Each of the front and rear ends of the processing tub of the continuous spray dyeing machine of the invention is provided with a passage, the left and right sides and the left and right walls of the processing tub form a parallel wide passage for the fabric to enter and pass through in a breadth expansion way. A cloth collecting tub is provided under the passage entrance close to the bottom of the tub in the upstream sector where the fabric can be folded and collected to an expected amount. The fabric then slows down in moving so as to disperse the tension in continuous proceeding. A cloth guide tube is formed in the downstream of the passage. One or a plurality of sector separated air guiding nozzles are provided along the direction of the passage on the cross section of the side wall under the cloth guiding tube. These nozzles are connected by pipes to a blast machine for guiding and ejecting pressurized air. One or a plurality of dye nozzles are provided above the cloth guide tube and connected with pipes to the dye pump for guiding and ejecting the dye or treating agents onto the surface of the fabric. A dynamical cloth dragging wheel is provided under the downstream outlet of the passage for dragging the fabrics in the cloth collecting tub to pass through the cloth guide tube. The fabric can then continuously proceed to enter the next processing tub and receive another processing operation. Therefore, when performed with dyeing and other processing operations, the fabric can have a full contact with the atomized dye particles ejected out of the dye nozzles to achieve the goal of small amount dyeing. Whenever the fabric gets in touch with the dye, the fabric generates a periodically violent vibration due to the high speed air flow ejected from the air guide nozzles. Thus, the dye, and chemicals or re-oxidation gas can obtain the energy necessary for penetrating into the fabric texture. The absorption rate and diffusion speed of the dye into the fabric can be thus enhanced and a continuous dyeing and processing operation with high efficiency, low energy consumption, low bath ratio and low pollution may be achieved.